Critically acclaimed and world-renowned traditional Irish band Lúnasa will take the stage at the Foundry Theater at Antioch College on Tuesday, March 11. From left are band members Ed Boyd (guitar), Trevor Hutchinson (double bass), Cillian Vallely (uilleann pipes), Seán Smyth (fiddle, whistles) and Kevin Crawford (flutes, whistles). (Submitted photo)
Traditional Irish band Lúnasa heads to Foundry Theater
- Published: March 10, 2025
Just six days ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, Yellow Springs is getting a little more green — an internationally renowned Irish band is jumping the pond and coming to town.
As part of the Foundry Theater at Antioch College’s ongoing season of programming, traditional Irish music quintet Lúnasa will take the stage Tuesday, March 11, at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at bit.ly/4ik9nGk.
Roving the country with a flutist, guitarist, double bassist, fiddler and piper, Lúnasa comes to the village on their month-long American tour.
Since forming in 1997, the critically acclaimed instrumental group has brought their Irish flair to every corner of the globe, playing on stages and in pubs, and producing eight full-length albums. The band’s name — pronounced “lune-eh-sah” — harkens to Lughnasadh, a Gaelic summer festival marking the beginning of the harvest season.
As Kevin Crawford, Lúnasa’s tin whistler and flutist told the News via Zoom last month, the celebratory imagery evoked by the band’s name was “just what the lads wanted.”
“Of all the old pre-Celtic festivals, it was one of the more flamboyant,” Crawford said in his lilting brogue, speaking from his home in upstate New York. “People would dress up, paint their faces. It’d be all music and merriment, drinking and debauchery — the kind of elements that we wanted to run with.”
Out of consideration for future audiences who may not speak Irish, the group opted for the more phonetic “Lúnasa” over Lughnasadh.
The inter-band discussion of that longlasting moniker came not too long after Crawford joined the group nearly three decades ago. He came onboard as a newlywed advertising salesman who played tin whistle and flute as a hobby — usually around kitchen tables and in impromptu pub sessions, “just noodlin’ on the things,” Crawford said.
A month after Crawford’s wedding, multi-instrumentalist Seán Smyth invited him to be part of a small group of musicians on a six-month tour of Australia. Crawford obliged, and Lúnasa was formed. In 1998, the band released its first full-length, self-titled album.
Though the makeup of Lúnasa has changed some over the years, the core lineup has generally held strong for over two decades — Crawford on flute and whistle, Smyth on fiddle, Ed Boyd on guitar, Trevor Hutchinson on bass and Cillian Vallely on whistle and uilleann — pronounced “ill-in” — pipes.
“But since a few of us play the whistle, that almost makes for a sixth member of the band. Together, they become like a kind of singer,” Crawford said, noting that the group is almost exclusively instrumental — playing traditional Irish melodies, rather than songs.
It’s unlikely many audience members of Tuesday’s performance at Antioch will have seen uilleann pipes played in person before, Crawford said. According to Na Píobairí Uilleann, an Irish group dedicated to preserving and promoting the instrument, only a few thousand musicians around the world play it — a cohort that is gradually dwindling.
The uilleann pipes are a kind of bagpipe, with the name loosely translating to the Irish word for “elbow.” The bag, inflated with a small set of bellows attached to the piper’s arm, provides air to the chanter, drones and regulators.
“It’s this full-body movement,” Crawford said. “Two elbows whaling, arms lifting like crazy. It’s impressive — everyone’s always impressed by the pipes. Even if Cillian was a terrible musician — which he most certainly is not — we’d still need him in the band.”
In instrumentation, in name and in sound, Crawford said the band takes seriously the folk tradition of Irish music. He likened Lúnasa to a single branch of an ever-growing tree whose roots go back centuries. For the group, Irish traditional music is a way of preserving old stories, lineages and even romantic visions of a place and a people.
“We’re carrying on the tradition,” Crawford said. “And we’re very fortunate to be able to make a living doing it now. A century ago, people were playing this kind of music just because they loved it.”
He continued: “Back then, the musicians were just kind of providing a function in a community, sometimes not seeing beyond their own village. They played for local dances, for communions, for weddings. And out of this tradition, it’s grown into something much, much bigger.”
It’s the genre’s “accessibility” that has contributed to its worldwide popularity and acclaim. Irish melodies, Crawford said, have the power to transcend any direct or romantic connection to Ireland — nostalgic, ancestral, imagined or otherwise.
As an example, Crawford said he’s seen some of the most enthusiastic Irish music fans in Japan.
“Which is just phenomenal! What’s the connection to Ireland there? There’s hardly any,” Crawford said.
It’s only fitting, then, that their most recent album release was 2024’s “Live in Kyoto.”
“Sure, years of immigration and circumstance have spread the sound, but I think there’s something basic in the melodies and rhythms that, when you peel back the veneer, make it the gift that keeps on giving,” Crawford said. “On a surface level, [traditional Irish music] can give you this instant dopamine hit, but the more you listen, the more you hear something new — it becomes more sophisticated than you first thought.”
Crawford said he and “the lads” are looking forward to bringing their jigs and reels to Yellow Springs — a place already steeped in its own long-standing musical folk traditions and sounds.
“Some could deem that jazz and classical music are for a certain class of people,” Crawford said. “But folk music? Folk music is of the people. Irish music is of the people.”
Lúnasa will perform at the Foundry Theater at Antioch College, located at 920 Corry St., on Tuesday, March 11, 7–9 p.m. As of press time, premiere floor seating had sold out, but general admission is $30 and student admission is $5. Tickets can be purchased at the door, or online at bit.ly/4ik9nGk.
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.